Garrett Hardin Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Garrett Hardin
Garrett Hardin (1986)
Born	Garrett James Hardin April 21, 1915 Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Died	September 14, 2003(2003-09-14) (aged 88) Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Chicago (BS) Stanford University (PhD)
Known for	"The Tragedy of the Commons" (essay)
Scientific career
Fields	Ecology

Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American ecologist and microbiologist. He focused his career on the issue of human overpopulation, and is best known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper of the same title in Science, which called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable."

Hardin held hardline anti-immigrant positions as well as positions on multiethnicism that have led multiple sources to label him a white nationalist. The Southern Poverty Law Center described his publications as "frank in their racism and quasi-fascist ethnonationalism".

Biography
Major works and positions
- Neomalthusian approach and "The Tragedy of the Commons"
- Living Within Limits
Works
See also

Biography

Hardin received a BS in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and a PhD in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 where his dissertation research addressed symbiosis among microorganisms. Moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1946, he served there as Professor of Human Ecology from 1963 until his (nominal) retirement in 1978. He was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research.

Major works and positions

A major focus of his career, and one to which he returned repeatedly, was the issue of human overpopulation. This led to writings on controversial subjects such as advocating strict limits to all immigration, which earned him criticism from the political left. In his essays, he also tackled subjects such as conservation and creationism.

Neomalthusian approach and "The Tragedy of the Commons"

In 1968, Hardin applied his conceptual model developed in his essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" to human population growth, the use of the Earth's natural resources, and the welfare state. His essay cited an 1833 pamphlet by the English economist William Forster Lloyd which included an example of herders sharing a common parcel of land, which would lead to overgrazing.

Hardin blamed the welfare state for allowing the tragedy of the commons; he claimed that where the state provides for children and supports large families as a fundamental human right, Malthusian catastrophe is inevitable. Hardin stated in his analysis of the tragedy of the commons that "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." Environmental historians Joachim Radkau, Alfred Thomas Grove and Oliver Rackham criticized Hardin "as an American with no notion at all how Commons actually work".

In addition, Hardin's pessimistic outlook was subsequently contradicted by Elinor Ostrom's later work on success of co-operative structures like the management of common land, for which she shared the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Oliver E. Williamson. In contrast to Hardin, they stated neither commons or "Allmende" in the generic nor classical meaning are bound to fail; to the contrary "the wealth of the commons" has gained renewed interest in the scientific community. Hardin's work was also criticized as historically inaccurate in failing to account for the demographic transition, and for failing to distinguish between common property and open access resources.

Despite the criticisms, the theory has nonetheless been influential.

Living Within Limits

In 1993, Garrett Hardin published Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos, which he described at the time as a summation of all his previous works. The book won the 1993 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. In the book, he argues that the natural sciences are grounded in the concept of limits (such as the speed of light), while social sciences, such as economics, are grounded in concepts that have no limits (such as the widespread "infinite-Earth" economic models). He notes that most of the more notable scientific (as opposed to political) debates concerning ecological economics are between natural scientists, such as Paul R. Ehrlich, and economists, such as Julian Simon, one of Ehrlich's most well known and vocal detractors. A strong theme throughout the book is that economics, as a discipline, can be as much about mythology and ideology as it is about real science.

Hardin goes on to label those who reflexively argue for growth as "growthmaniacs", and argues against the institutional faith in exponential growth on a finite planet. Typical of Hardin's writing style, he illustrates exponential growth by way of a Biblical metaphor. Using compound interest, or "usury", he starts from the infamous "thirty pieces of silver" and, using five percent compounded interest, finds that after around 2,000 years, "every man, woman, and child would be entitled to only (!) 160,000 earth-masses of gold". As a consequence, he argues that any economy based on long-term compound interest must eventually fail due to the physical and mathematical impossibility of long-term exponential growth on a finite planet. Hardin writes, "At this late date millions of people believe in the fertility of money with an ardor seldom accorded to traditional religious doctrines". He argues that, contrary to some socially-motivated claims, population growth is also exponential growth, therefore even a little would be disastrous anywhere in the world, and that even the richest nations are not immune.

Works

Books

1949, Biology: Its Human Implications W. H. Freeman
1952, Biology: Its Human Implications, Second Edition W. H. Freeman
1959, Nature and Man's Fate, Rinehart & Co.
1961, Biology Its Principles and Implications W. H. Freeman
1966, Biology Its Principles and Implications, Second Edition W. H. Freeman
1972, Exploring new ethics for survival: the voyage of the spaceship Beagle Viking Press. ISBN: 0670302686
1973, Stalking the Wild Taboo W. Kaufmann. ISBN: 0913232033
1974, Mandatory Motherhood: The True Meaning of 'Right to Life' Beacon Press. ISBN: 0807021776
1977, The Limits of Altruism: an Ecologist's view of Survival Indiana University Press. ISBN: 0253334357
1980, Promethean Ethics: Living With Death, Competition, and Triage University of Washington Press. ISBN: 0295957174
1985, Filters Against Folly, How to Survive despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent Viking Penguin. ISBN: 067080410X
1993, Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0195093852
1999, The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0195122747

Chapters in books

1993. The entire text of Garrett Hardin's Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos, Chapter Eight, Growth: Real and Spurious Reprinted at GarrettHardinSociety.org, by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc
1991. "Paramount positions in ecological economics." In Costanza, R. (editor) Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability, New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN: 0231075626
1991. "The tragedy of the 'Unmanaged' commons – population and the disguises of providence." In: R. V. Andelson, (editor), Commons Without Tragedy, London: Shepheard-Walwyn, pp. 162–185. ISBN: 0389209589 (U.S.)

Awards and honors

Hardin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.
Hardin was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1974.
Hardin's 1993 book Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos, received the 1993 Award in Science from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Garrett Hardin facts for kids

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